give them your positive advice and counsel To engage in blood: And 'then,' lastly, 'you' bestow upon them a small collation in Four Ecclesiastical Decrees or Orders,-which will signify as little, being performed by your spirit, as if you had said nothing. And the obligation that lay on you' to all this you make to be your Pastoral relation to them, "over Your Flocks."

To which last a word or two.* I wonder how this relation was brought bout! If they be "Flocks," and you ambitious of the relative term? Yes,' you are Pastors: but it is by an antiphrasis,→ -a minime pascendo! You either teach the People not at all; or else you do it, as some of you zame to this Conventicle who were sent by others, tanquam Procuratores, 'teach them,' as your manner is, by sending a company of silly ignorant Priests, who can but say the Mass, and scarcely that intelligibly; or with such stuff as these your senseless Declarations and Edicts !-But how dare you assume to call these men your "Flocks," whom you have plunged into so horrid a Rebellion, by which you have made them and the Country almost a ruinous heap? And whom you have fleeced, and polled, and peeled hitherto, and make it your business to do so still. You cannot feed them! You poison them with your false, abominable, and anti-Christian doctrine and practices. You keep the Word of God from them; and instead thereof give them your senseless Orders and Traditions. You teach them "implicit belief:"-he that goes among them may find many that do not understand anything in the matters of your Religion. I have had few better answers from any since I came into Ireland that are of your Flocks than this, "That indeed they did not trouble themselves about matters of Religion, but left that to the Church." Thus are your "Flocks" fed; and such credit have you of them. But they must take heed of "losing their Religion." Alas, poor creatures, what have they to "lose?"

Concerning this, 'of losing their Religion,' is your grand caveat, 'however.' And to back this, you tell them of "Resolutions and Covenants to extirpate the Catholic Religion out of all his Majesty's Dominions." And you instance in "Cromwell's Letter of the 19th October, 1649, to the then Governor of Ross,"† repeating his words, which are as follows, viz.: "For that which you mention concerning liberty of conscience, I meddle not with any man's conscience. But if by liberty of conscience you mean a liberty to exercise the Mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know, Where the Parliament of England have power, that will not be allowed of." And this you call a "tyrannical Resolution ;" which you say hath been put in execution in Wexford, Ross, and Tredah.

* The Lord Lieutenant is very impatient with this last;' flies at it first. † Antea, vol. i., p. 395.

Now let us consider. First, you say, The design is, to extirpate the Catholic Religion. Let us see your honesty herein. Your word "extirpate" is as ill collected from these grounds, and as senseless as the word "Catholic," ordinarily used by you when you mention Catholic Roman Church. The word "extirpate" means 'ruin of' a thing already rooted and established: which word 'is' made good by the proof of "Covenants," by that Letter expressing the non-toleration of the Mass (wherein, it seems, you place all the "Catholic Religion," and there you shew some ingenuity*), and ‘by' your instance of what was practised in the three Towns afore-mentioned: do these prove, either considered apart or all together, the "extirpation" of the Catholic Religion?

By what Law was the Mass 'ever rooted, or' exercised in these places, or in any the Dominions of England or Ireland, or Kingdom of Scotland? You were intruders herein; you were open violators of the known Laws! And yet you call the "Covenant," and that 'refusal' in the Letter, and these practices at Wexford, Ross, and Tredah," "extirpation” of the Catholic Religion,—' which had' thus again 'been' set on foot by you, by the advantage of your Rebellion, and shaking off the just Authority of the State of England over you! Whereas, I dare be confident to say, You durst not own the saying of one Mass, 'for' above these eighty years in Ireland. And 'only' through the troubles you made, and through the miseries you brought on this Nation and the poor People thereof,-your numbers, which is very ominous, increasing with the numbers of the' wolves, through the desolations you made in the Country;-only by all this' did you recover again the public exercise of your Mass! And for the maintenance of this, thus gained, you would make the poor People believe that it is ghostly counsel, and given in love to them as your "Flocks," That they should run into Wars, and venture lives, and all upon such a ground as this! But if God be pleased to unveil you of your sheeps-clothing, that they, 'the People,' may see how they have been deluded, and by whom, I shall exceedingly rejoice; and indeed for their sakes only have I given you these competent characters,-for their good, if God shall so bless it.

And now for them, 'the People of Ireland,' I do particularly declare what they may expect at my hands in this point. Wherein you will easily perceive that, as I neither have 'flattered' nor shall flatter you, so neither shall I go about to delude them with specious pretences, as you have ever done.

First, therefore I shall not, where I have power, and the Lord is pleased to bless me, suffer the exercise of the Mass, where I can take notice of it. No,' nor in any way' suffer you that are Papists, where

*Means 'ingenuousness,' as usual.

I can find you seducing the People, or by any overt act violating the Laws established; but if you come into my hands, I shall cause to be inflicted the punishments appointed by the Laws,-to use your own term, secundum gravitatem delicti,*-upon you; and shall try' to reduce things to their former state on this behalf.† As for the People, what thoughts they have in matters of Religion in their own breasts I cannot reach; but shall think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, Not to cause them in the least to suffer for the same. And shall endeavor to walk patiently and in love towards them, to see if at any time it shall please God to give them another or a better mind. And all men under the power of England, within this Dominion, are hereby required and enjoined strictly and religiously to do the same.

To the second danger threatened;' which is "the destruction of the Lives of the Inhabitants of this Nation :"-to make it good that this is designed, they‡ give not one reason. Which is either because they have none to give; or else for that they believe the People will receive everything for truth they say,-which they have too well taught them, and God knows the People are too apt, to do. But I will a little help them. They speak indeed of "rooting out the Common People;" and also, by way of consequent, that the extirpating the Catholic Religion is not to be effected without the "massacring, destroying, or banishing the Catholic Inhabitants." Which how analogical an argument this is, I shall easily make appear by and by.

Alas, the generality of "the Inhabitants" are poor "Laity," as you call them, and ignorant of the grounds of the "Catholic Religion." Are they then so interwoven with your Church Interest as that the absence of them makes your "Catholic Religion" fall to the ground? We know you think not so. You reckon yourselves, and yourselves only, the pillars and supporters thereof; and the Common People 'useful' as far as they have the exercise of club-law, and, like the ass you ride on, obey your commands. But concerning these relations of your Religion, and your right to practise it,' enough has been spoken in another place ;-only you love to mix things for your advantage.

But now' to your logic. Here is your argument: The design is to extirpate the Catholic Religion; but this is not to be done but by the massacring, banishing, or otherwise destroying the Catholic Inhabitants: ergo, it is designed to massacre, banish, and destroy the Catholic Inhabitants. To try this no-concluding argument,-nothing-concluding,' but yet well enough agreeing with your learning,-I give you this dilemma;

* A phrase in their Pamphlet.

+ No cozening here! Is now addressing the People; has unconsciously turned away from the Priests, and put them into the third person.

Unimportant they, to the vigor or decline of it.

by which it will appear That, whether your Religion be true or false, this will not follow :

If your Religion be the true Religion, yet if a Nation may degenerate from the true Religion, and apostatise, as too many have 'evidently' done, (through the seducements of your Roman Church, think we'),—then it will not follow that men must be "massacred, banished, or otherwise destroyed," necessarily; no, not as to the change of the true Religion in a Nation or Country!* Only, this argument doth wonderfully well agree with your principles and practice; you have chiefly made use of fire and sword, in all the changes in Religion that you have made in the world. 'But I say,' if it be change of your Catholic Religion so-called, it will not follow because there may be found out another means than "massacring, destruction, and banishment;" to wit, the Word of God; which is able to convert. A means which you as little know as practice; which indeed you deprive the People of! That means may be found;' together with humanity, good life, equal and honest dealing with men of a different opinion;-which we desire to exercise towards this poor People, if you, by your wicked counsel, make them not incapable to receive it, by putting them into blood!

And therefore, by this also, this that you talk of massacring,' your false and twisted dealing may be a little discovered. Well; your words are, "massacre, destroy, and banish." Good now: give us an instance of one man since my coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished; concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice hath not been done, or endeavored to be done.t As for the other of banishment, I must now speak unto the People, whom you would delude, and whom this most concerns; that they may know in this also what to expect at my hands.

The question is of the destruction of life; or of that which is but little inferior to it, to wit, of banishment. 'Now First' I shall not willingly take or suffer to be taken away the life of any man not in arms, but by the trial to which the People of this Nation are subject by Law, for offences, against the same. And Secondly,' as for the banishment, it hath not hitherto been inflicted on any but such who, being in arms, might justly, upon

6

* A subtle dilemma,' and very Oliverian; seems to eat itself like a Ser pent-of-eternity, and be very circular reasoning; yet grounds itself, if ex amined, upon sharp just insight, and has real logical validity. Call your Religion true, men have changed from it without being massacred: admit it to be false, will you say they need massacring ? Whatever Religion you may have, I think you have not much Logic to spare!'

+ 'Concerning the two first of which,' in orig. The italics, in this passage, are mine; and can be removed so soon as Macgeohegan, Carte, Clarendon, and Company have got to be well understood.

the terms they were taken 'under,' have been put to death :-as 'might' those who are instanced in your Declaration to be "sent to the Tobacco Islands." And therefore I do declare, That if the People be ready to run to arms by the instigation of their Clergy or otherwise, such as God by His providence shall give into my hands may expect that or worse measure from me; but not otherwise.

Thirdly, as to that of "the ruin of their Fortune." You instance the Act of Subscription,* " whereby the estates of the Inhabitants of this Nation are sold, so as there remaineth now no more but to put the Purchasers in possession ;" and that for this cause are the Forces drawn out of England. And that you might carry the Interest far, so as to engage the Common sort of People with you, you further say to them, That "the moderate usage hitherto' exercised to them is to no other end but to our private advantage, and for the better support of our Army;" 'we' intending at the close of our "conquest," as you term it, "to root out the Common People also, and to plant the land with Colonies to be brought hither out of England." This, consisting of divers parts, will ask distinct an

swers.

And first, to the Act of Subscription. It's true there is such an Act ;and it was a just one. For when, by your execrable Massacre and Rebellion, you had not only raised a bloody War to justify the same; and thereby occasioned the exhausting the Treasure of England in the prosecution of so just a War against you,-was it not a wise and just act in the State to raise money by escheating the Lands of those who had a hand in the Rebellion? Was it not fit to make their Estates to defray the charge, who had caused the trouble? The best therefore that lies in this argument is this, and that only reaching to them who have been in arms, for further it goes not: "You have forfeited your Estates, and it is likely they will be escheated to make satisfaction; and therefore you had bet

* At the first breaking out of the Irish Rebellion into an Irish Massacre, the King's Exchequer being void, and the case like a case of conflagration, an Act was passed, engaging the Public Faith, That whoever would 'subscribe' money towards suppressing the said Rebellion in Ireland, and detestable and horrible Massacre of Protestants there, should, with liberal interest, be repaid from the forfeited Estates of the Rebels,- —so soon as they were got. This is the 'Act of Subscription' spoken of here. His Majesty said: "How will that answer? It is like selling the bear's skin before you have caught your bear." A bargain, nevertheless, which hundreds and thousands entered into, with free purse and overflowing heart; 'above a Quarter of a Million' raised by it; generous emotion, and tragic terror and pity, lending sanction to doubtful profit-and-loss. A very wise and just Act of Parliament, the Lord Lieutenant thinks; which did also fulfil its engage ments by and by.